I wrote about the road trip that inspired this list yesterday. It’s good to be home. The cats have forgiven us for abandoning them, at least Perry has. Claire Trevor is a diva, so she’s made of sterner stuff.
I usually research these lists. In this instance, I picked the songs off the top of my head. That’s why there are mostly famous songs along with the odd obscurity.
It’s yet another literal list, which should not be confused with a littering list. All the songs have the word road in them. That’s not trashy at all.
The songs are listed in roughly chronological order based on the recording date.
On with the show this is it.
We begin with a song Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer wrote for the 1943 movie musical The Sky’s The Limit. It was introduced by Fred Astaire but this 1957 recording by Lady Day is my favorite interpretation of this swell tune.
A song in which Francis Albert admonishes us to “look down, look down, that lonesome road.”
It’s one hit wonder time with The Nashville Teens who were not all teens when this song was released.
Chester Burnett DBA Howlin’ Wolf had one of the grittiest voices in musical history. Grit and dirt combine in this song recorded in 1968.
If you have aliens on your mind, this Zappa song is for you. It’s also the lone roads song. I still have punctuation on my mind.
The most obvious song on the listicle is among the best road songs ever recorded. One could even call it Boss.
Ray Davies’ ex-wife Chrissie Hynde rocks the Middle Of The Road.
If you know where you’re going, you’re not on the Road To Nowhere:
The next song led to John Fogerty being sued for self-plagiarism by Saul Zaentz and Fantasy Records who owned the copyrights to Fogerty’s Creedence songs. John won the case.
Thus far, we’ve travelled on lonesome and dirt roads, let’s hit a gravel road with the gravelly voiced singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams.
Finally, Rodney Crowell’s Houston hurricane song:
That concludes the road songs dozen proper.
What would an Adrastos listicle be without a dollop of lagniappe. This time, we have two pairs of different songs with the same title. We commence with Canned Heat and Willie Nelson. Willie’s road song was used as Edwin Edwards’ walk on tune at his rallies.
Our second couplet combines music by two of my favorite British artists: Nick Lowe and Fairport Convention.
The End.